Posted on 07/22/2006 8:45:38 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
President Bush ran for office as a "compassionate conservative." And he continues to nurture his conservative base — even issuing his first veto this week against embryonic stem cell research.
But lately his foreign policy has come under fire from some conservatives — including the father of modern conservatism. CBS Evening News Saturday anchor Thalia Assuras sat down for an exclusive interview with William F. Buckley about his disagreements with President Bush.
William F. Buckley's Stamford, Conn., home is a tranquil place that allows Buckley to think and write, and spend time with his canine companion, Sebastian.
"He's practically always with me," Buckley says.
Buckley finds himself parting ways with President Bush, whom he praises as a decisive leader but admonishes for having strayed from true conservative principles in his foreign policy.
In particular, Buckley views the three-and-a-half-year Iraq War as a failure.
"If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we've experienced it would be expected that he would retire or resign," Buckley says.
Asked if the Bush administration has been distracted by Iraq, Buckley says "I think it has been engulfed by Iraq, by which I mean no other subject interests anybody other than Iraq. ... The continued tumult in Iraq has overwhelmed what perspectives one might otherwise have entertained with respect to, well, other parts of the Middle East with respect to Iran in particular."
Despite evidence that Iran is supplying weapons and expertise to Hezbollah in the conflict with Israel, Buckley rejects neo-conservatives who favor a more interventionist foreign policy than he does, including a pre-emptive air strike against Iran — and its nuclear facilities.
"If we find there is a warhead there that is poised, the range of it is tested, then we have no alternative. But pending that, we have to ask ourselves, 'What would the Iranian population do?'"
Buckley does support the administration's approach to the North Korea's nuclear weapons threat, believing that working with Russia, China, Japan and South Korea is the best way to get Pyongyang back to the negotiating table. But that's about where the agreement ends.
"Has Mr. Bush found himself in any different circumstances than any of the other presidents you've known in terms of these crises?" Assuras asks.
"I think Mr. Bush faces a singular problem best defined, I think, as the absence of effective conservative ideology — with the result that he ended up being very extravagant in domestic spending, extremely tolerant of excesses by Congress, and in respect of foreign policy, incapable of bringing together such forces as apparently were necessary to conclude the Iraq challenge," Buckley says.
Asked what President Bush's foreign policy legacy will be to his successor, Buckley says "There will be no legacy for Mr. Bush. I don't believe his successor would re-enunciate the words he used in his second inaugural address because they were too ambitious. … So therefore I think his legacy is indecipherable"
At 81, Mr. Buckley still continues to contribute a regular column to the National Review, the magazine he started 51 years ago.
That is true, and I couldn't be prouder of the fact.
This just in... the Pope is Catholic!
Buckley and Buchanan...you can always count on them to be against Israel. The Euro-Arabist elitist way these geezers think is really out of date.
They are brilliant, articulate, but, could it be that "Jewish" thing?
Who does? That is, when you can even make out what the man is saying!
School. Rush completed HS & a semester of college at a small time U.
Buckley needs to leave his ivy covered ghetto once in awhile--see America.
Like so many GOP presidents (except RWR, perhaps) Mr Bush is pretty good internationally and weak on domestic.
Buckley is a great theoretician, and we owe him much for founding modern conservatism. But he is not a political strategist or tactician. Read and enjoy him, but remember his limits.
"... the only thing you have left is to b*tch, moan, and whine, on Internet forums."
Ahem. And just what are you doing, Mr. Mainstream?
and spend time with his canine companion, Sebastian.
"Buckley is getting fuzzy in his old age. But, that's to be expected."
I don't think it's that he's getting senile, I think most people reach a certain age beyond which their worldview can no longer be changed. People like Buckley sees the world through 20 year old lens. To him being conservative probably still means fighting communism. The USSR was the big enemy in his day, I don't think he sees Islamofacism as the same global fight, and I don't think he's capable of seeing it in the same light. That's why he's incapable of seeing its significance.
ok.. I am sure you know I am talking about Rush Limbaugh..I don't believe he has a college degree..yet in 1994..when the GOP took control of BOTH chambers of congress..Rush was made an honorary member of the rookie class that took over..for all of Buckley's funny and witty work..he could never do that..that is my point..I like William Buckley..but he just didn't sell "in Peoria"..as the saying goes...
You got Buchanan nailed but I don't know what you're talking about with Buckley.
They won't push a point, or back a liberal into a corner. They were the happy conservative minority when the Democrats controlled all branches of government, content to sigh and wearily shake their heads at the follies of the liberals, secure that things would be better if they were in charge, but secretly happy that they weren't.
Bush is right about the Iraq war.
Buckley? He brags about being the extreme left wing of the right wing. I think he was a bigger disaster than Bush Sr. and that is saying something.
He is a symbol of the power of the modern neo-conservative movement. Paleo-conservatism isn't an issue to libs, because paleo-conservatism doesn't adopt liberal stratagems for political gain. Bush and the neo-cons are a prime threat to the libs precisely because they are so much like the libs. Paleo-conservatism can't survive in a democracy, because it tries to take the long-view approach and shuns populism. Neo-conservatism is, however, totally populist and as such is closer to the leftists in form if not quite in ideology (although it seems to me that logically ideology will follow form eventually), which is why it's so dangerous to the left. Note the slow change in rhetoric, it's not conservative ideals which are bad it's neo-cons themselves, those idiot red staters.
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